Next-Gen Consoles Improved Call of Duty for the Current Gen

With the upcoming releases of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 gaming consoles – both scheduled for release next month – many gamers are getting ready to retire their current-gen consoles. However, according Derek Racca, Senior Producer at Raven Software, the impending release of the new consoles is actually what has allowed developers to get the most out of current generation technology. He has stated that the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 have both been pushed in performance by the newer consoles, and that Call of Duty: Ghosts is a better game because of this push.

This is a belief that may sound a little bit farfetched. He explains it, “Basically, our engine will scale to provide the best look for each platform. There’s no current-gen engine or next-gen engine, it’s just ‘the engine’ and basically we create something, an asset that’s just ‘shoot-for-the-moon crazy high-res,’ and then the engine determines the best way to show that on each generation.”

There’s probably a lot of truth to what Racca has said. It’s certainly not unusual for developers to use the same engine for multiple platforms, or to use textures of a higher resolution than a particular platform is capable of rendering clearly. However, this does raise a question. How much have the next-gen consoles pushed the performance of the current-gen versions of Ghosts; and how much have the current-gen consoles limited the performance of the next-gen versions of the game? In any case, the game’s engine has received a reworking that Racca believes was necessary, and that’s hardly something to complain about.

Call of Duty: Ghosts is scheduled for release on November 5th, for all major gaming platforms, as well as for PC.

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